


I'll Breathe You A Garden

by raendown



Category: Naruto
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 16:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13767831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: Hanahaki disease is a condition which causes the victim of unrequited love to grow flowers in their lungs, ending in death when the roots grow too deep and eventually suffocating them if the feelings are never returned.For Tobirama it begins with a single petal.





	I'll Breathe You A Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Now with art by my amazing friend @copyninken on tumblr!

When they meet for the first time it is not a problem. Of course not, they are on opposing sides of a generation’s long feud, the reason for which has been lost to time. The moment Tobirama and Madara meet for the first time they barely even spare a glance for each other and their thoughts are nothing but derogatory and prejudiced, typical progenies of the environments they were raised in.

More than a decade passes before Madara and Tobirama are properly introduced and it is done by the one thing the two of them have in common: Hashirama. As part of the peace their clans have agreed upon, Hashirama insists that all of his special persons must know each other and get along. It is to his disappointment to discover that his brother and his best friend do not get along in the slightest, trading heated glares and pointed insults at every available opportunity. Others quickly learn to never leave the two of them alone in a room together.

Once construction of the village is completed and the two clans have separate areas to which they can retreat and stare suspiciously from behind proverbial curtains, things improve. Only barely but it still counts. Tobirama and Madara avoid each other as much as possible and both fall in to the habit of pretending the other does not exist when they are forced in to close proximity. Meetings are frequently made awkward by the tension between them but since all agree that it’s better than violence, nothing is ever done about it lest the pair of them fall back in to those undesired violent patterns. The less blood shed between two such prominent figures, the easier the peace between the rest of their kin.

It isn’t until the second anniversary of the village founding that things begin to change. As others begin to recognize the safety inherent in trading their clan pride for pride in a village, infrastructure in Konohagakure grows in necessary ways. Among the new additions is the academy which is Tobirama’s pride and joy.

And among the complications is finding teachers for the academy who have three very important qualifications. Those who have both the skill and the temperament do not always have the approval of each clan head. As it draws close to the time when they hope to begin holding classes, a snap decision is made to have the clan heads themselves all take turns giving lessons to the children of the village. The hope is that the experience will help them better understand the requirements of the position so that they may better judge who to allow in those roles.

The results are both exactly what one might expect and nothing at all like what one might expect. With Hashirama having been named Hokage, the title of clan Head falls technically on Tobirama’s shoulders and he is the only person of the group who goes to this duty with any amount of pleasure. That much might have been expected since his fondness for teaching the next generation is well known. What is not expected is Tobirama’s reaction to seeing Madara forced in to a teaching roll as well, surprisingly gentle with the children of many clans.

It is seeing Madara crouched on his heels and scowling deeply even as his hands oh-so-softly correct a young girl’s dragon seal that brings about the beginning of a sickness Tobirama has heard of only in legends. The first symptom is a strange palpitation of the heart, an off-beat thumping in his chest when Madara grumpily praises the young child and receives a beaming smile in return. Unsure what it is that caused the odd sensation or the even odder images suddenly running through his mind, Tobirama vows to leave Madara be during his shifts with the academy class. A healthy dose of suspicion is all well and good when it comes to the well-being of the children but it’s obvious that it is his own health he should be worried about.

Symptoms progress quite slowly at first. Madara is still a mule-headed ass with too much pride and Tobirama still avoids him when possible. Except that isn’t completely true. A mere week after he makes his vow Tobirama breaks it and returns to the academy to watch the older man navigate the trials of imparting wisdom on to a roomful of children from all different backgrounds. Despite having witnessed it before it still surprises him how well Madara fares in a duty none would have thought him to excel at.

When his heart skips a beat Tobirama tries hard to put it down as another fluke even as he wraps his chakra closer in to himself and settles in to continue watching. He tells himself that it is in the children’s interest that he comes back the next week and also the week after that. When they pass in the hallways and ignore each other during meetings he pretends it is only keeping the peace and not because he suddenly has the urge to hide until these strange feelings go away. As his interest grows so does his awareness of the chaos which would result should anyone know of this fascination which he cannot seem to shake.

Four months later the first petal appears.

He is in a tea house with his sister-in-law listening to Mito complain about how often her husband will stay out late to waste his pocket money in gambling dens. When she asks him a question he opens his mouth to reply only for his breath to catch on something and set off a coughing fit.

Mito waits patiently for him to catch him breath and then looks at him strangely when he uncovers his mouth to reveal a pale lavender flower petal. Tobirama looks at it strangely too; what an odd thing to find in one’s throat. But it is only one petal and spring is in full bloom so a blossom on the wind seems much more likely than some fairy tale disease of which neither of them have ever seen a real case. That he might have produced the flower himself doesn’t even occur to either one of them at the time. Conversation carries on and the incident is forgotten.

A week later he is sitting alone in his office, working on anything and everything he can to put off his visit to Hashirama’s office. His senses tell him that his brother is not alone in there and he almost has avoiding Madara down to an actual art form. So for once instead of doing his duties he is whiling away the time putting the finishing touches on a project which will not be reviewed by the council for another three weeks, his inner eye focused on the two men who he is certain aren’t actually doing anything productive. The tickle in the back of his throat doesn’t really draw his attention in any particular way. He gives a quiet cough to clear it and sets brush to parchment again, still focused on other things.

Choking on what feels like nothing but air, however, does get his attention rather quickly. Tobirama balls one fist in front of his mouth as he coughs and coughs until he’s begun to wonder about a possible allergic reaction to something. When the obstruction finally clears he spits out three petals of the prettiest blue he’s ever seen.

Tobirama looks at them in horror, a thought forming in his mind and immediately being dismissed as being fanciful. Yet he cannot deny that there is no open window for a breeze to come in through, no current in the stale air of the tower which might have blown something in to his mouth. He doesn’t remember eating any flowers or for that matter consuming anything more today than a slice of toast for breakfast. There is no logical way for these petals to have come to be inside his throat, lodged deeply enough to give him trouble breathing, yet here they are. Slowly, carefully, he opens the drawer of his desk and sets the three petals down inside then closes away the evidence.

No need to bother anyone about this yet, he thinks. Obviously his fanciful thoughts are wrong and there will be no more incidents like this one so why should he bother someone else with something so ridiculous?

Still, Tobirama leaves the tower that day without ever having gone to see his brother, important documents left with the man’s secretary to be delivered later while he leaves to head a few blocks over where a library has only recently been opened to the public. He thinks that surely research will calm his irrational fears; he even feels a faint shadow of excitement for being able to finally see what new books the other clans have brought with them.

A month later the desk in his office has a tiny collection of flower petals in a small but beautiful heap hidden away from the rest of the world. They come in every color imaginable, showing up in patterns he can’t begin to unravel, and he hates them almost as much as he loves them. Each petal causes pain now as they tear themselves up out of his lungs and force their way up his esophagus. They are impossible to breathe around and he knows that it is only by some extreme force of luck that none but Mito have yet witnessed one of his attacks. A smarter man might have thrown away the evidence but Tobirama finds himself attached to them in some strange way he can’t explain.

Hanahaki disease, he knows, is born of when one person develops unrequited feelings for another. He’s read all the symptoms and each of the legends, studied the progression of the illness, and he knows the future suffering that he is faced with. And yet he cannot help but to stroke each petal as it appears, admiring the softness and the shade. Just as he cannot help but to follow Madara with his eyes each time they are in the same room together, loving from afar a man who it seems would prefer that he did not exist.

Life is cruel in its ironies and Tobirama has always known that. Only, he had thought that he had seen all the ironies he deserved already, isn’t sure what he has done to earn this beautiful yet painful death sentence.

His final irony is as gentle as it is difficult to bear and it begins on the day Hashirama finally notices that something is wrong. For so long he has been able to keep his malady a secret – a coughing fit here or there can be written off for so many reasons – but the day he finally brings up his first flower it feels as though suddenly death is knocking at his door, leering through the windows with a patient grin. Hashirama looks at the full blossom in his hand with something akin to terror in his eyes but he doesn’t have to say anything. Tobirama knows.

Flowers mean that roots have begun to grow. Soon his lungs will be filled with them and there will be no room for air in his body, no way for him to breathe blessed oxygen around the wood and the flora growing within.

“Brother?” Hashirama’s voice is small as he plucks the gardenia from his fingers and cradles it between shaking palms. “Tobirama…since when?”

“Long enough,” he replies, unable to look at anything but flower. Gardenia for secret love. How appropriate, he thinks. But he has brought up petals of endless variety and he knows that this is only the beginning. Some part of him hopes that not all of them will have such heavy handed symbolism; he would hate to be so boring.

Across the room, Madara and Izuna watch them with looks which he has no wish to decipher. Certainly there are hints of sympathy but he has no desire to see the pity that is surely hidden close behind. The last thing he wants is Madara’s pity when it is him that Tobirama is dying for, him that he dreams of in the moments when he allows his mind to drift away and settle where it will. No, he would much rather keep to himself and allow Madara to go on pretending he does not exist. It will be easier on everyone if he simply fades away that they might forget he was ever here.

At first it is much easier to fade away than he thought it would be, although he isn’t sure if that pleases him or not. Obviously concerned for his well-being, Hashirama is more than willing to grant him as much rest as he wishes and Tobirama spends many days working from home, avoiding the world but not the pains that it has caused him. He spends more time with both Mito and Touka than he ever thought he would and it shocks him to discover just how poorly they are both handling the situation. His cousin is nearly as devastated as his brother at the impending loss hanging over their heads and Mito – dear Mito – for all her grace, her bedside manner is utterly deplorable.

When they ask him one day if there is no chance Tobirama sips his tea and turns his head away. The roots expanding inside his lungs are nothing compared to the shriveling of his heart and there is nothing he wants less than to talk about it.

Hashirama’s questions are more pointed and his responses harder to explain.

“I’ve read up on this disease,” he says. Tobirama does not look at him.

“As have I.”

“Then you know there is a cure! A surgery! I could save your life so why won’t you let me!?”

Tobirama does not flinch as a large tanned fist comes down on table littered with dainty little blossoms, yellow daffodils for unrequited love. Still so boring and predictable but he counts himself lucky to never have choked on a rose.

“If you know what the cure is,” he murmurs, “then you know what it will do to me. Better to die than to never feel love again.”

“You can’t be serious!”

Had he meant to answer that at all he still would not have been able to. His next breath catches in his chest and Tobirama curls in to himself, wracked with a severe coughing fit that shakes his body leaves him red in the face with lack of proper oxygen. Hashirama pats his back and apologizes for yelling, tears welling in his eyes. There are almost always tears in his eyes now.

Even after he opens his mouth and spits up two full daisies, the subject is not brought up again. Tobirama is relieved, not only to be spared the embarrassment of being so obvious about his emotions but also that he will not have to struggle for the words to express them. How to explain that he fears a world in which he cares for nothing, a world where not even the tether of familial love exists to stop him from following the darkest of his thoughts? In the secret places inside him, the shadows he does not share, he knows that Hashirama is the light which keeps his feet marching along the correct path. Without the love he carries for his older brother, Tobirama knows he would not be good for this world.

The next day Hashirama brings to him his final irony and Tobirama goes to his fate with a scowl which completely disguises both the pleasure and the distaste he takes in this new change. As Touka leaves the village on a mission with great reluctance, Mito finally throws up her hands and admits that she has no skill as a caretaker.

“I can’t stand the thought of you alone,” Hashirama tells him.

He wonders what ever possessed his sibling to think that Madara, of all people, was the right man to keep him company. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they are best friends and no matter what others say Hashirama will always think of Madara as the soft children they were when they met at the riverside. There is nothing soft about that face as Madara watches him settle on the couch, curled beneath a blanket and feeling disgustingly frail.

Getting a shinobi’s recommended daily exercise is abominably difficult when one cannot breathe through the motions.

At first Tobirama refuses to speak to his new warden, uninterested in knowing what kind of blackmail convinced him to agree to this duty. Not that he speaks very much anyway these days. More than half the time when he opens his mouth it is to vomit another blossom of red or yellow or the palest blue. Some of them have stems now that trigger his gag reflex and always have him reaching for the bucket he keeps nearby. In the end what which drives him to speak is the same thing which drove him to create some of his most infamous jutsu: boredom.

Madara retains a neutral expression most of the time and unless necessary he rarely gets up from the seat which has been turned in to his temporary workspace, where paperwork is completed during the long stretches when neither of them say anything. But when they do speak he is disturbingly gentle and Tobirama hates it, hates being treated softly.

Hates that he needs it, dying for something so stupid the way he is.

Their conversations aren’t momentous in any way. He doesn’t truly learn anything life changing nor does he give away any information about himself that he wouldn’t reveal to another stranger. Madara grumbles about the content of this letter or stupidity of that budget request. He makes endless pots of tea and they discuss their favorite flavors, arguing the merits of black against green. In return Tobirama makes an attempt to do as much paperwork as he can without exhausting himself in between feeding Madara as many embarrassing stories as he recalls of Hashirama during their childhood. If there is anything he wants to leave behind when he passes it is the ability to remind Hashirama that he was once – and still is – the world’s biggest dork.

It feels as though time passes so much slower in the last two months of his suffering, for which Tobirama is both grateful and annoyed. It certainly isn’t pleasant to have one’s death prolonged. But after thinking about the issue perhaps a bit too much he finally admits that he is through with running and accepts every moment he can soak up of Madara’s presence, thinking it his final parting gift. Hashirama takes as much time as he can spare to be here at home but he has a village to run and it is Madara with whom Tobirama spends most of his time.

At almost exactly noon on a perfectly sunny day, Tobirama coughs up several flowers and a handful of blood.

Madara’s first reaction is to send a clone for Hashirama, of course. He helps Tobirama recline on the mountain of pillows piled up on the couch, knowing that it feels best when he uncurls his chest to make room around the roots growing inside of him. Each breath wheezes in his throat and when he tries to speak his words break on another coughing fit that brings up nearly half a bouquet.

When Hashirama arrives the handkerchief that Madara has pressed to his lips is soaked in blood.

“Do something you idiot,” the Uchiha snaps. Hashirama kneels with shining eyes and drops his head on to Tobirama’s shoulder, the very picture of helplessness.

“There’s nothing to do,” he whispers, flinching when Madara snarls.

“Bullshit! You’re a healer!”

“I’m not the one who can heal him.”

“Then who is!?”

“I don’t know!” A broken sob escapes Hashirama as he feels the body underneath his embrace shudder and writhe, struggling to breathe. “You’ve heard the legends, haven’t you? Hanahaki disease can only be cured if the person he is in love with returns his feelings.”

Brought up short, Madara frowns and turns away to pace a circuit around the living room. From his spot on the couch, Tobirama follows the man with his eyes, committing the sight of him to memory one last time. It isn’t a memory he will get to keep but it is precious just the same.

When he comes storming back over to crack a fist against Hashirama’s shoulder, Madara’s face is set in to a rictus of determination he usually saves for battle.

“How can you not know who it is?”

Rather than answer, Hashirama sighs. It isn’t for asking that he doesn’t know; he has asked a dozen times, a hundred times, but Tobirama has always believed he would prefer to go to his grave with pride. In this moment now he wonders at his own folly. What harm could it do to grant them at least the peace of knowing there was nothing they could do? It wasn’t as though it would matter very much to him by tomorrow. The dead feel no embarrassment.

His mouth, when he opens it, is so full of petals that no sound comes through and they do not fall out as they always have. At long last the roots have grown too long and too wide and the short unsatisfactory breaths that he is stealing through his nose will be his last. Weakly, he looks down the garden in his lap. There are so many buds of so many colors and Madara’s attention is drawn to him as he lifts one hand to pick through them.

The tulip that he holds out is a perfect ruby red but at least it’s not a rose – still much too cliché. He knows Madara can read his intentions as he slowly lifts it and offers it to the older man, the head of the flower drooping in his lax grip. Before it can fall from between his fingers Madara catches it, cradles it gently, and stares back at him in wonder.

A tulip, in the language of flowers as he has been taught, is used as a declaration of love.

Madara looks between him and the red bloom with unfathomable eyes and for a moment Tobirama thinks that at least he will have the amusement of that confused face as the last sight he sees. His chest spasms as even his nose fails to draw breath, his vitals racing in protest. The human body can survive for two minutes without oxygen before suffocating; he regrets having spent so much time researching the effects of it.

While Hashirama’s fists tighten in the material of his shirt, Tobirama is seconds away from giving himself over to fate when Madara furrows his brow in determination once more and, against every expectation, leans down to plant a kiss right on his lips.

Despite his genius and his over-large vocabulary, Tobirama does not have words to describe the sensation when he opens his mouth, dripping petals like a tree in spring, and takes his first proper breath in more than a year. Inside his chest he can feel both lungs expanding as though they had never been filled to bursting with roots and stems. His heart races, thunders, skips for joy as his mind struggles to keep up with both the information and the stimulation that it is receiving.

He can breathe.

Madara kissed him and now he can breathe.

Kneeling on the floor still, Hashirama sobs like a newborn child, blubbering his way through prayers of thanks to every god he can think of. Tobirama pays him no mind since it isn’t truly all that different from his usual behavior. Instead he keeps his eyes on Madara while he gulps in giant breaths, nearly high from taking in more oxygen than he is used to now.

“So…” Madara ventures. “How come that worked but me having feelings for you for months now didn’t?”

“For _how_ long?” he gasps in return. Tobirama feels his eyebrows attempting to merge themselves with his hairline, shocked to his very core. Madara gives him an unimpressed look that, after so much time spent in each other’s presence, he understands means that the other is hiding his embarrassment.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” Madara growls.

Tobirama pauses for a moment before without warning he bursts in to laughter. He can’t say anything at all, can he? Considering the fact that he almost allowed himself to go quietly in to the next life rather than say something to the man he loved, he is the last person who should lecture another on their reticence. It feels like the first time he has laughed in an entire lifetime and he doesn’t bother to hold back even as both Hashirama and Madara look at him with wonder showing openly on their faces.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he hears Madara say. Before he can answer, Hashirama does so for him, wiping at his eyes with the corner of one sleeve.

“Hanahaki disease is born of the victim’s feelings. Just returning his affection wasn’t enough; Tobi couldn’t be cured until he _knew_ about the way you felt.” In the next moment he is on his feet with both arms wrapped around a loudly protesting best friend. “But you did it, you saved him! Thank you! I owe you everything I have!”

“Get off me you overgrown fool!”

Without the two of them hovering over him, Tobirama slowly sits up and closes his eyes, filling his lungs and enjoying the sensation of having no obstructions in his throat. It feels amazing.

He stands up and with gentle hands he pushes the other two men apart. Then he pulls Madara to him by the collar of his shirt and drags him down in to another kiss, this time full of all the fire and feelings he very nearly died for. Caught up in each other, neither of them pay any attention to the way Hashirama can’t decide whether he wants to watch with a dreamy expression or close his eyes and tell them to get a room.

“You saved my life,” he murmurs after they finally part. “How disappointingly cliché. A terrible ending to a story.” Madara snorts and rolls his eyes.

“Only you would think of a story which ends with everyone alive as terrible.”

“Even worse: I think I owe you one. That absolutely won’t do.”

“I can think of several things you can do to make it up to me.”

Pulling up one corner of his mouth, Tobirama smirks. “I hope I hate all of them just as much as I hate you.”

They both know he means not at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hanahaki disease is a commonly known fictional disease and more can be read [here](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Hanahaki_Disease).
> 
> Artist would like it noted that their picture was drawn using [this](http://s-enja.tumblr.com/post/161883793788/hanahaki-disease-illness-born-from-one-sided) image as a reference, with permission.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Flowers Speak Louder Than Words](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15065933) by [PhoenixFireAndSanelyInsane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFireAndSanelyInsane/pseuds/PhoenixFireAndSanelyInsane)
  * [In Fool Bloom](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17388869) by [DonKoogrr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DonKoogrr/pseuds/DonKoogrr)




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